US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Hawaii in mid-June.China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe and his US counterpart Mark Esper warned each other in a phone call about escalating risks over Taiwan and the South China Sea, in the highest-level US-China talks since state leader Yang Jiechimet
Esper “expressed concerns about [the Chinese military’s] destabilising activity in the vicinity of Taiwan and the South China Sea, and called on [China] to honour international obligations” as well as share more of its data on Covid-19, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
“There are obligations that the Chinese government is under responsibility for with regard to the [World Health Organisation] agreements, so they have a need to provide samples to provide data,” Hoffman said. “That didn’t happen and we expect them to to continue to improve their information sharing in regard of that.”